TG: you sound like a real popular lady out hereTG: even you are looking for you!UU: indeed.TG: well i hope you can find herTG: butTG: if thats your jobTG: to find bizarro calliope and go wollop ur broTG: then what is our heroic biz?UU: it's the same as it always was.UU: to win the game.TG: oh yeahTG: duhUU: it is as i once told jane.UU: with victory yoU may finally exit this vast whirling storm.UU: by claiming yoUr reward yoU woUld bring closUre to a very wide coil of caUsality, one not tracing a continUoUs path like a snake, bUt intricately woven like a wreath.UU: a ring of coUntless little rises and falls, ascents and descents, on its way Up and down a pair of mUch bigger ones itself.UU: from alpha to beta, then beta to alpha, as if a moUntain to be scaled and then climbed back down. its peak toUches the eye of a storm which cannot end Until the moment yoU all walk throUgh that door.UU: only then will there be calm.TG: ._.UU: ah, bUgger. forgive me, sometimes i forget myself and begin speaking in riddles.UU: it's jUst a habit that is in the natUre of my people.TG: yeah i knowTG: at least yours r better than your bros stupid gamesUU: don't remind me. in my opinion they do not qUalify as anything of the sort, mUch the same as his "shitty twists". >:uTG: so then from what im surmising here is we dont need to beat him to win our gameTG: like dealing with him directly is kinda out of our domain?UU: as the one who provoked the breach in paradox space which i jUst coloUrfUlly described, he has always exerted his inflUence on yoUr realities from afar, and from many different angles. throUgh Unwitting sUrrogates, oUtsoUrced manipUlation, oUtright enslavement, and even petty harassment. bUt most of all, he prevails throUgh the simple inertia of inevitability that has always been on his side, as a lord of time.UU: and as the one who is to blame for foolishly allowing him access to sUch power, it's only proper that i take responsibility for finding a way to defeat him.UU: bUt even thoUgh his methods of inflUencing yoUr session are indirect, they are still formidable.UU: there will be a nUmber of powerfUl foes who stand between yoU and victory.UU: tomorrow, a terrific battle will take place.UU: when yoU wake Up, i sUggest yoU begin to prepare.TG: ummmm okTG: howTG: like make more sick gearTG: i could hustle up another batch of illwicked gunsTG: just a big ol pile of gunsTG: jake can have the wimpy smaller onesTG: make jane like a fancy new fork or spoon or suchTG: like an elite endgame spoonTG: whatever that isTG: like uhTG: the chowderfucker 5000TG: janey be flippin her godspoon round bopping monsters doing likeTG: CUCKOO damageTG: wont bother make nothin 4 dirk since hes basically married to his boring anime swordTG: like u could even pry that thing from his rad dead cadaverUU: yes, i'm sUre new eqUipment woUld come in handy.UU: now that yoU mention it, well before i died or even realized i woUld not live to play, i made special exception to my rUle of staying linear with conversation. i messaged jane a birthday gift.UU: yoU see, i had a brief vision from skaia which sUggested to me she coUld Use a boost in morale on this special day, so i offered her something very dear to me. jUst a little token to show appreciation for her friendship.UU: i hope it will cheer her Up, and moreover that it will prove at least somewhat UsefUl to yoUr party.UU: bUt really, at this stage if yoU wish to prevail against sUch stacked odds, collecting boons sUch as new weapons and treasUres will only go so far.UU: i think yoU will need to embrace a far more sUbstantive gambit.

So what do we call this pause? I've been batting ideas around all day. We could go with the obvious choice, the MINIGIGAPAUSE. Or maybe, MEGAPAUSE 2: BACK IN THE MEGASADDLE. Or if that makes too much sense, we could always settle on the MICROTERAPAUSE. As you can see, there are so many incredibly intelligent and meaningful things we could call this pause. Deciding how to refer to the pause is an exercise that I will leave to the reader. Feel free to discuss the matter with friends. Or strangers. Anyone who will listen really. If they start to run away, I strongly recommend you chase them.

Why don't we say that A665 begins on 4/13. That's a fun number that we all can get excited about. I have a lot of catch-up work to do between now and then. Not the least of which is drawing the actual content to be posted. But also a lot of gamedev work. Game production is rolling pretty hot right now. Stuff is being churned out almost faster than I can keep track of. Did I mention? I accidentally started running a game studio a little while ago. Whoops, sorry about that. There are all these people being paid to make things happen, and I have to be like "Yeah, keep doing that stuff, everybody." It's getting pretty easy to lose track of how many people work for What Pumpkin. My last estimate was somewhere between 30 and 1000. The true figure is a very frisky moving target.

A6A6A5, a.k.a. Caliborn's Masterpiece, is actually done. It's probably better to hold off posting it until 4/13, when more content will soon follow aftewards. I am sure pausing on that note for months would mess with your head a lot more than the note we're already pausing on. I sometimes feel I have at least a modest responsibility to manage your sanity. It'll be tough sitting on this content though. Tougher than sitting on all of A664 for the better part of a year. I don't think it is out of line to describe it as the best material this website will ever exhibit. It will be all down hill from there, in every direction. Even up.

Speaking of sanity management, way back when, I was pretty on the fence about posting A664 spaced out over months like I did, vs. all at once. Doing the latter in hindsight probably would have been a fucked up thing to do to the internet though. The GAME OVER fallout alone was a bit much as it was. Including it in tandem with the rest of it? Not sure what to make of that. Let's review the CONTENT CRUSH that would have entailed. Bad Anime -> Game Over -> Sadstuck -> Lowas Quest -> 100 retconned panels of oil -> A bunch of other shit -> Punky Serket -> Fantroll Storytime -> 8 password pages -> The Kiss On Horse Mountain -> and finally -> The Punchline. You know, that's an awful lot of baloney to publish. I think the fell-swoop reaction to all that would have been quite a thing to behold, but also, perhaps an irresponsible thing to do to a hapless fanbase after a year in hibernation. I'm told that in 2015, young people are heavily susceptible to "the feels", and trifling with those forces could be injurious to their future development. Wait, did that just sound like something your grandpa would say? Mother fuck, where did I put my cane. Oh right, I snapped it in half from shaking it at the sky.

I may have been in the process of making a point there, but we're going to have to pick this up another time. The comic isn't going to pause itself!!!

Over the last couple months, I have been surreptitiously collapsing several update horses into single, bigger horses. This means A6A6I4 is going to end a little sooner than previously advertised. Same total page count, but finishing sooner. Please consult the important horse calendar below.

So what happens when A6A6I4 is done? I'm not quite sure yet. I'm still working on everything that comes after that. I've written it mostly, but haven't drawn anything yet. There will almost certainly be another pause, but I'm not sure how long it will be yet. I will let you know after 1/19.